


Caught

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Crutchie and the reader hang out in the penthouse, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 03:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14095947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: You didn't know how Crutchie had gotten the penthouse to himself for the evening, but you were glad that he had invited you up.





	Caught

How Crutchie had gotten Jack’s penthouse for the evening, you didn’t know, but you were happy he had. 

It was an unspoken rule that newsies stayed out of the penthouse. That rooftop was for Jack and Crutchie, no exceptions. The newsies only went up if Jack wanted to have a private conversation, and nobody ever wanted that. Private conversations usually meant trouble, either because you had made a mistake or because you were going through something too rough for Jack to ignore. 

You had never been to the penthouse before. That was quite a feat for somebody that had been a newsie since being around Les’ age. You had grown up with most of the newsies that you lived with, but you had a spotless record with almost all of them. You did your best to stay off the radar, so you didn’t find yourself in much trouble. Not Jack-worthy trouble, at least. To go through something rough, you had to have something that could hurt you. You didn’t have much. That meant that you didn’t wind up in trouble there, either. You spent your free time in the Lodge with the others, and you had every intention of keeping it that way.

But now, looking out at the sun setting over the city, you envied Jack’s little piece of peace. Even the newsies with families didn’t have a place that was totally theirs; if they had that kind of luck, they wouldn’t have ended up selling papes in the first place. To sit above New York, basking in the quiet and the soft light, was a luxury that Jack was blessed to have. Crutchie had invited you up after supper, and it was the first night without chaos that you could remember.

“Alright,” Crutchie was saying. “Strangest customer?”

“The man with the tap shoes,” you said.

He grinned. “Tap shoes?”

Every morning at around 10 o’clock, a man in tap shoes would come and buy a pape. Every syllable he spoke would be accompanied by a click of his shoes, and he would do the same for everything you said. He claimed that the wrong number of syllables would bring on a disaster, but he had yet to tell you what would happen or how many syllables would set it off. You told Crutchie, imitating the taps by clicking your tongue.

He laughed into the quiet evening. “He’s crazy. Toys in the attic.”

You shrugged, fighting a goofy grin. His laugh filled your stomach and chest with wonderful and distracting swoops and flutters. “Maybe, but maybe he’ll prove you wrong. One of these days I’ll be possessed by a demon, summoned by my saying thirteen syllables without tapping my shoes.”

“You’s too good for demons, Y/N,” he replied. “They’d see you and run straight away.”

“Right. That’s absolutely how possession works.” As far as you knew, neither of you had ever set foot in a church. For all you knew, demons didn’t go after the good folks. 

“No,” he continued, “the demon would run straight for the nearest baddie. The Delanceys, maybe, or Race.”

You snorted. “Race has a heart of gold, deep down.” Crutchie grinned, mockingly doubtful. “Deep, deep down.”

“Fool’s gold, maybe,” Crutchie said slyly. You gave a hoot of laughter, leaning against Crutchie for a second in appreciation. He leaned back, a little cautious, but wholeheartedly willing to touch you back.

 

You and Crutchie didn’t get much alone time, and there was no voiced reason for you to get any at all. The newsie crew was a family, so privacy was hard to come by. Jack got his own space because he was the leader, and Crutchie got to go to the penthouse because he was Jack’s best friend. Jack claimed that it was because Crutchie had trouble getting around in the crowded rooms, but everybody knew he just had a soft spot for the boy.

“Where’s Jack tonight?” You didn’t want to get in trouble if he came up the ladder and saw you there, unwelcome and unexpected.

“Who knows?”

You blinked, surprised. That was less of an answer than Crutchie would usually give. When you first met him, he had been taken aback by the numerous “what ifs” that you would suggest to him. At the time that had surprised you, but as you grew older, you thought that you could understand a hesitancy to imagine a different life. Sometimes it hurt to think of things you might never get. But as months and then years passed, he started to play along. Maybe he didn’t know where Jack was, but it surprised you that he hadn’t given a guess or made up a story.

“Is he with Katherine?”

“No,” Crutchie said. “He’s just out and about.”

You turned to look at him, giving him a confused smile. “What does that even mean? Jack doesn’t just disappear.”

“He’ll be back later,” Crutchie said evasively. “I just thought it might be fun to be here, just the two of us.”

“Sure,” you said slowly. It was fun, of course; you would think that washing dishes was fun if Crutchie was there with you. You sometimes found excuses to go on walks together, or would get up a few minutes early so you could meet up outside a few minutes before the others got up. But you had never been to the penthouse. It was Jack’s place. “Does Jack know that I’m here?”

“He won’t mind,” Crutchie said. 

You decided to let it drop. Crutchie didn’t keep many things hidden, at least not from you, but you didn’t want him to be open with you because he felt like he had to be. Besides, you weren’t going to complain. It was a beautiful night with a wonderful boy, and you wouldn’t want one hidden detail to wreck it.

 

“This is wonderful,” you said happily. 

You couldn’t see Crutchie’s face; you sat side by side and looked out at the city. You couldn’t see his face, but you could feel his smile. “Yeah, the penthouse is alright.”

“No,” you said emphatically. “No, it’s great. We live in the greatest city in the world, and we get the greatest view in the world.”

He snorted. “An alley in lower Manhattan is the greatest view?”

There were streets and buildings as far as you could see. The streets that were normally just muddled streaks of grey and brown were cast in beams of orange and pink as the sun set. You turned your head, just a little, just enough to see the way the light brought out the brilliant streaks of gold in Crutchie’s hair and the soft pink of his sunburned cheeks. “It absolutely is.”

 

The two of you were looking up at the few stars that could fight through the smog and the lantern light. It was dark, but New York still managed to block out anything outside of the city. The rooftop was too hard to lay on, but you ignored the way your limbs protested. You didn’t know any constellations, but looking at the sky still made you feel like you were a part of something big. Too big, maybe, and that made it a lot easier to think clearly.

You gave a big yawn. “If I could stop time, right here, I would.”

You heard him shift a little, but you stayed still. Your eyes were almost closed. “Really? Tonight?”

“Sure,” you said sleepily. “This is a perfect night. If I could keep things just like this, I would.”

You could hear the smile in his voice, and it made you want to smile too. “You wouldn’t change a thing?” he asked. “No food, no satin pillows, just this?”

“Nope,” you said. “Just this.”

Maybe you were lying to yourself if you thought that you didn’t care about things enough to be hurt by them. You did care about the newsies, though you didn’t think that any of them would ever have any reason to hurt you. They were annoying and loud and funny and loving, and you thought that the only hurts they could cause were skin-deep. They would never do something if they knew it would cut, and they would do what they could do to fix it if they did do something too harsh. They could hurt you, but they wouldn’t.

But Crutchie was different. He made “what ifs” feel like “somedays.” When New York felt too big, you could sit with him and pretend that it was a ghost town. He could really, really hurt you, and you thought that maybe that was okay.

“Actually, maybe I would change one thing,” you said. Maybe too much time had passed since he had asked, but maybe not. Maybe there was still enough time for you to change one thing and make the night really, really perfect.

He gave a sleepy hum, but it went a little strangled when you reached over and grabbed his hand. You intertwined your fingers with his, heart beating out a rhythm of uncertainty and hope and a lot of anxiety.

“There,” you said. “Now it’s perfect.”

Crutchie didn’t say anything. He didn’t pull away, which seemed like a good sign to you, but he didn’t say anything. You were just hanging there, caught somewhere between being terribly hurt and completely whole for the first time in forever.

“I asked Jack to go away for the night,” Crutchie said in a hoarse voice. He sounded confused and happy and just as caught as you were. “I told him that I wanted to bring you up here, just the two of us, so he made himself scarce.”

There is was. Maybe a part of you had expected that, since no part of you felt surprised. There was only warmth and relief. Crutchie had wanted to get you alone. You squeezed his hand a little, and he squeezed back. “Perfect,” you said again. 

“Yeah,” he said. He was smiling again, and this time you turned to look at it. It was broad and goofy and so perfect that your breath caught. “Okay. Let’s just freeze time, right here.”

You couldn’t, unfortunately, keep things there. The next day, the sky was bright and the city bustled with noise. It wasn’t just the two of you anymore, and there was no night sky to make thinking easy. Even so, you kept holding Crutchie’s hand, and that made things feel pretty perfect.


End file.
